The "authorities" never raided the lockers, never looked at his ranch,

[niyad]

ignored his Paris place, missed the "secret" room/safe in his NY place, etc., etc., etc. One would think it was done on purpose. Either that, or we were paying some of the most incompetent people in those departments ever. No writer of fiction could have ever gotten away with such a cast of incompetent assholes. No editor would have passed it. Fiction has to at least touch plausible reality.